Warning C4512 Assignment Operator In Javascript

The latest version of this topic can be found at Compiler Warning (level 4) C4512.

class' : assignment operator could not be generated

The compiler cannot generate an assignment operator for the given class. No assignment operator was created.

An assignment operator for the base class that is not accessible by the derived class can cause this warning.

To avoid this warning, specify a user-defined assignment operator for the class.

The compiler will also generate an assignment operator function for a class that does not define one. This assignment operator is a memberwise copy of the data members of an object. Because data items cannot be modified after initialization, if the class contains a item, the default assignment operator would not work. Another cause of the C4512 warning is a declaration of a nonstatic data member of reference type. If the intent is to create a non-copyable type, you must also prevent the creation of a default copy constructor.

You can resolve the C4512 warning for your code in one of three ways:

Explicitly define an assignment operator for the class.

Remove const or the reference operator from the data item in the class.

The first is saying that the compiler could not generate an assignment operator. This happens because of your reference member, as references cannot be reseated:

You can silence the warning by explicitly disabling it yourself:

That's an old trick to make the assignment operator unusable, but stops the compiler from generating it.

In C++11, you can do this:

which is more explicit and much less hacky.

The other is because you never used your argument, which can often be an error in program logic. You should probably remove its name if you don't use it:

Personally I delete it completely. Others do this:

It's sometimes wrapped in a macro called :

I consider these inferior to simply deleting the name, because if the warning is actually correct (that is, you do have a flaw in your program and aren't seeing it), you're masking the warning, defeating the purpose.